[S.T.D.]

With the India/Paki border erupting with fierce fighting these days, I thought about this thread.

In what seems to be yet another parallel, the BBC reported today:

"India has produced what it says is firm evidence that Pakistan is sponsoring cross-border infiltration by militant Kashmiri separatists.
A man captured by its forces in Indian-administered Kashmir told reporters that he had received months of training from the Pakistani intelligence services before being sent to carry out a number of attacks. "

This is reminiscent of Israel's evidence against Arafat, and how in the face of clear evidence, the world will once again look away and pretend the evidence does not exist at all. This is to protect yet another beligerent Muslim entity engaged in terrorism against a peaceful neighbor.

I am now waiting for France, Belgium, Sweden and Norway to condemn India and threaten to cut off trade...

[Ifroham4]

Originally posted by McSceptic
Both the Palestinan and Indian divisions were made by weak (and British) colonial powers who believed that the dispositions they made would be accomplished facts, regardless of the people affected. And that is as much from an Israeli as a Palestinan POV, as neither proto-state was probably viable.

I'm not convinced the Palestinan/Israeli conflict has much impact upon oil. They're a long way from the oilfields. That's a good observation that the British colonialists divided both India and Palestine into parts that now guarantee ongoing conflict. The divisions never should have been done in the way they were and in fact, the Brit who was involved in splitting Palestine has admitted that the whole thing was arbitrary.

As for the oil, I can say that the typical American view is that the Israeli/Arab conflict does impact oil supplies becuase they fear that the ocnflict will spread into a regional one, involving Saudi Arabia, Iran and other oil states. It's the regional implications that are the issues rather than just the Israeli/Palestinian problems in Gaza and the West Bank.

One example is the 1973 oil embargo where the Arabs balckmailed America and tried to hurt our economy after losing in the Yom Kippur War. The oil embargo caused inflated fuel prices and huge lines at gas stations.

[tgs]

Originally posted by cerulean
At any given time, I've read, there are several dozen armed conflicts being waged around the world. True. There are armed conflicts and attrocities against populations in various places around the world.

But the Indian/Pakistani conflict is the most similar, IMO, to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in many ways.

[Peptobismol]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/opinion/30SAFI.html

All one can do is hope for the best, I suppose.

My high-school history said almost two decades ago that WWIII was most likely to break out on the India-Pakistan border.

[HedgeYourBets]

While replying to another thread, it occurred to me to look at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a completely different perspective.

The prespective is actually 2 other countries formed at the same time as Israel, and in both cases stuck in a rut of ongoing violence due to Muslim terrorism to "liberate" disputed land. Those countires are India and Pakistan who have been in a state of war over the disputed region of Kashmir for more than 50 years. And while these countries are located a half a world away geographically from Israel, these countries are living in a parallel universe to Israel and the Palestinians.

Here's what I mean:

Compare the Israeli/Palestinian dispute to the India/Pakistan situation, where 98% of the residents of Kashmir, who are Muslims, want their land to be joined with Pakistan, and the Indian government disagrees and rules Kashmir with a military presence.

I personally, couldn't care less about Kashmir, and so I tend to see the reports of violence as a waste of the combatants' time and that if 98% of the population want something, they will get it soon enough. If I read reports of many Indian casualties there, I might also say that they should just get out of Kashmir and hand it over to Pakistan. What's the point really in the Indian Hindus occupying a hostile population made up of 98% Muslims who view themselves as India's enemies?

Well, I think that many people, including the world media also see the Israeli/Palestinian problem in the same way. Unless someone actually cares about the Jewish people or the fact that there is only one Jewish state and also follows the news carefully, maybe it's just one blur of violence on both sides.

And worse yet, the Israeli/Palestinian violence potentially threatens the world's oil supply, which is even more incentive to force the parties to stop the fighting, even if Israel and the Jewish people lose big chunks of their homeland. In the eyes of the world, who cares really about Israel's borders one way or the other, so long as we can all keep on driving our SUVs loaded with cheap Arab oil. Does anyone in the world who is not Jewish really care about the settlers' right to live in the land of their forefathers? I doubt it.

I think many people and the media do, in fact, see it this way, which leads to a slant in the media and a distorted world view as if all this Mideast violence should just be forced to stop, no matter what the effect would be on Israel.

Yes, this is a weird perspective taken from the India/Pakistan dispute, but I think that's how the world views Israel and the Palestinians as well.

Comments welcome.

[Drugmachine]

Bomb rips bus, kills four in Indonesia

http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID...2-075046-7031r

JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 6 (UPI) -- A bomb that ripped apart a crowded passenger bus in central Indonesia killed four people and injured 17 others, police and health officials said Thursday.

The incident was the worst to hit Central Sulawesi since warring factions signed a peace agreement in December to end two years of violence between Muslims and Christians.

...

Two years of sectarian violence fueled by the presence of the militant Islamic group Laskar Jihad have left between 500 and 1,000 people dead and forced thousands of others to flee the region. Roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians live in Poso.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, has been wracked by social and sectarian violence since former President Suharto was forced to resign in May 1998 after 30 years in power. According to official figures, thousands have died and nearly a million others have been displaced.

Nearly 85 percent of Indonesia, a secular state, is Muslim.

[tgs]

I look to the history of Ireland since 1840 for parallels of the creation of Israel. And then the history of Ireland since 1970 and the assimilation of Ireland in the EU for parallels of the politics of the modern Israeli state.

One key point, and its a European one, is that European countries, since the expansion of the EU now believe that to maintain their sovereignty is to give up most of it. For example, there is more to be gained in being less Irish than there is to be lost in being more "European". The power of the state doesn't represent much any more and the distinctions of language, cuture, religion, history only stand in the way of that force. I think this more than anything else is the root cause of EU furious objection to all things Israeli. The EU's world view is one of a post colonial world where the state and all of its identity is a rather minor footnote to history. The notion that a state would hold tenaciously onto its identity is something precisely not "European" anymore. In the old world where the foreign policy might be "make the world England" now the polity is 'make the world the same'.

And then I think that a problem with Likud and a threat to its survival is not that it is weak, but that it is strong. In fact so strong that it has not coopted the opposition. It's strength alone has created a credible opposition inside Israeli politics. But I haven't fleshed this one out yet.